カンボジア、トンレサープ湖東岸地域農村における集落の解体と再編: 一村落社会の1970年以降の歴史経験の検証

Abstract

As is well known, Cambodia was plunged into five years of internal warfare in 1970 andsuffered under totalitarian state rule during the Pol Pot era of 1975-79.These historicalfacts evoke various images of social change. However, the reality of those changes has notbeen well researched until quite recently. This paper, based on long-term rural fieldwork, examines in detail the demise and reconstruction of a Cambodian village in the easternregion of the Tonle Sap Lake since 1970 and explores changes and continuities in thevillage as a geographical and organizational entity.The research area fell under communist control in , and in February 1975 most ofthe villagers were relocated to the provincial capital by Lon Nol government forces. Aftertheir return to the village following the communist victory in April 1975, they werecategorized as "new people, " and most were not allowed to live in their own houses. Byanalyzing the history of each household compound and the villagers' accounts of their ownrelocation, the paper reveals differences in villagers' experiences before, during, and afterthe era of turmoil. In this way, this paper demonstrates how Cambodian village society iscomposed of people living together who once held various attitudes to the revolutionarystate.Moreover, this paper examines what drove the reconstruction of village society. Afterthe Pol Pot period, survivors returned to their original villages and took ownership of theirprevious household compounds in the process of re-defining the local social order. Thismeans that the continuity of village residents shaped the fundamental conditions forvillage reconstruction. In addition, although the socialist government in the 1980s deniedprivate land ownership, the villagers could request and obtain new household compounds.This facilitated the expansion of the village's geographic scope. Furthermore, analysis ofvillage organization from a diachronic perspective illustrates the uxorilocal residencepattern as a continuous organizational characteristic of village society.In the historical processes since 1970, the village landscape changed and many liveswere lost. However, the village has reconstructed itself based on continuity in both itsresidents and its organizational characteristics.